Massachusetts
Massachusetts schools need a balanced curriculum on the Mideast – The Boston Globe
The MTA was right that teachers need help teaching such an emotional, confusing topic. But the guidance the union came up with shows that the MTA itself is too biased to be trusted with that job.
Given how fraught the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become, the state should instead take the lead in providing a balanced and detailed curriculum for instructors to use if they teach about either the immediate conflict, now in uneasy ceasefire, or the longer history of the tensions.
It would be an unusual step for the state. But this is an unusual subject. And without a state curriculum to help schools, partisan sources may keep trying to fill the void.
The most recent worries about MTA bias came after the union posted on the members-only section of its website links to posters, films, books, and articles that were disproportionately critical of Israel; the posters in particular portrayed the long-time conflict in a one-sided way, some even trafficking in antisemitic themes.
The MTA initially portrayed the controversial material as nothing more than resources to help MTA members develop an appreciation of different perspectives on the conflict.
Massachusetts Educators Against Antisemitism, a group of concerned MTA members, had persistently urged the union leadership to take down the web page. But at a Feb. 8 meeting, despite being shown some of the antisemitic or otherwise offensive images, the MTA board of directors voted overwhelmingly against doing so, according to attendees.
It was not until mid-February — after a Feb. 10 grilling of the MTA president, Max Page, by the Special Commission on Combatting Antisemitism in the Commonwealth — that the MTA announced it would remove “any materials that do not further the cause of promoting understanding,” asserting in that Feb. 19 statement that “MTA members would never want to have antisemitic materials on the MTA website.”
At the hearing, commission cochair Simon Cataldo, a Democratic state representative from Concord, put Page on the hot seat, highlighting numerous examples of content that had triggered concerns among Jewish MTA members and asking for his assessment of that content.
One was a poster of a large hand rising from a group of kaffiyeh-clad protestors to grab the tongue of a snake, with the words “unity in confronting zionism.”
Another poster proclaimed, “Zionists, [expletive]-off, free Palestine.”
A third featured a kaffiyah-wearing fighter with an assault rifle and proclaimed, “What was taken by force can only be returned by force.”
Yet another presented dollar bills folded into a star of David.
Cataldo also spotlighted “Handala’s Return: A Children’s Story and Workbook,” an early-elementary-grades-level book about a Palestinian youth that includes sentences like this: “Children like me keep having their homes taken by the Zionist bullies.”
The MTA has now purged the links to the sites containing those posters. But Jewish MTA members say more needs to be done, noting that the union’s website still has the curricular material portraying Zionists as home-stealing bullies and remains very unbalanced. A link to “Handala’s Return” was still up as of last week.
“While Max Page claims that the MTA is reviewing the curricula-resources web page, there is no clear structure or system in place for how this review is being conducted, who is responsible for conducting it, and what criteria is being used,” says MTA member Jany Finkielsztein, also a member of MEAA. “Given the MTA’s track record over the last year and a half, it is really difficult to trust that the final result will be balanced.”
Although Page can certainly be faulted for having been slow to respond, the larger controversy appears to reflect an ideological strand of thought within the union. Some MTA members and activists clearly view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of the postcolonial or settler-colonialism frame popular with the academic left. Its adherents tend to discount the long history of Jews in the Mideast and glide over the fact that the 1947 United Nations action that helped establish Israel also envisioned a sovereign Arab state, only to have that plan rejected by the Arab world.
That pro-Palestinian slant is clearly reflected in the website content, which the MTA’s division of training and professional learning assembled pursuant to a motion the MTA executive board approved in December of 2023.
That outlook is also reflected in a letter an internal MTA group called MTA Rank and File for Palestine sent to presidents of MTA locals in support of the controversial content.
“As MTA members, we should be proud that our union is providing resources that finally clarify the historical record,” the group wrote. “Seeking a balance in perspective on this situation is a flawed premise…. There is no balance to 76 years of ethnic cleansing, occupation, apartheid, and genocide.”
MTA Rank and File for Palestine was founded by former MTA president Merrie Najimy, Page’s predecessor, who views many things through the prism of racism. Najimy spoke at the MTA board meeting in opposition to altering the web page, according to several attendees.
At the recent commission hearing, Najimy said that comments she had heard during the hearing and considered racist had agitated her to such a degree that her smart watch had alerted her that her heart rate was elevated.
“That is a physical manifestation of racism,” she declared. A participant in Gaza-related protests, Najimy insisted that one could be part of a rally chanting “We don’t want no Zionists here” and still teach objectively in the classroom about the conflict.
“People can be activists on the street … and be in a different space being an educator,” she said.
Parents and the general public can perhaps be forgiven for looking skeptically on that contention. No one should want their kids subjected to a biased or unbalanced account of the complex history and controversies of this, or for that matter, any, region.
Most teachers, we believe, want to teach the subject with the nuance and sensitivity it deserves but may not have the training or expertise to do so. And for that reason, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education should contract with a well-regarded curriculum-development firm to produce a balanced lesson plan on the situation in the Middle East and the centuries of conflict that preceded it.
DESE’s high school world history framework on the subject consists of eight bullet points listing the general concepts that should be taught, from the Zionist movement through the United Nation’s 1947 vote to create two independent countries, to the region’s wars, to the more recent attempts at a two-state solution. But though useful as a general guide, it stops well short of specifying the events or facts that should be taught. It is not a curriculum.
A state-provided curriculum would aim to be a balanced resource for the state’s teachers. Like everything else about the Middle East, it would be highly scrutinized and undoubtedly imperfect. Still, it would help reassure parents that their children were receiving as balanced an overview as possible of this complex conflict. And its existence would provide even more reason for the MTA to bring to a close its ill-advised attempt at providing content for the state’s teachers.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.
Police shot and killed a man who officials say rushed officers with a knife during a call in Lexington, Massachusetts, on Saturday.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said the situation started around 1:40 p.m. when Lexington police received a 911 call from a resident of Mason Street reporting that his son had injured himself with a knife.
Officers from the Lexington Police Department and officers from the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC), who were already in town for Patriots’ Day events, responded to the call.
Police were able to escort two other residents out of the home, initially leaving a 26-year-old man inside. According to Ryan, while officers were setting up outside, the man ran out of the home and approached officers with a large kitchen knife.
She added that police tried twice to use non-lethal force, but it was not effective in stopping him. The man was shot by a Wilmington police officer who is a member of NEMLEC. The man was pronounced dead on scene and the officer who fired that shot was taken to a local hospital as a precaution.
The man’s name has not been released.
Ryan said typically in a call like this where someone was described as harming themselves, officers would first try to separate anyone else to keep them out of danger, which was done, and then standard practice would be to try to wait outside.
“It would be their practice to just wait for the person to come out. In the terrible circumstances of today, he suddenly rushed the officers, still clutching the knife,” Ryan said.
The investigation is still in the preliminary stages and more information is expected in time. Ryan said her office will request a formal inquest from the court to review whether any criminal conduct has occurred, which is the standard process.
This happened around the same time as the annual Patriots’ Day Parade, and just hours after a reenactment of the Battle of Lexington, which drew large crowds to town.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Massachusetts
‘An impossible choice’: With little federal help to combat rising costs, Head Start looks to Massachusetts for more help – The Boston Globe
In Massachusetts, roughly 1,300 slots for children across Head Start’s 28 agencies have been eliminated in the last three years because federal funding has plateaued over that time, while the cost of running the program continues to rise, according to the Massachusetts Head Start Association. Nationally, Head Start enrollment dropped from 1.1 million kids in 2013 to around 785,000 in 2022, according to research by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
“If they didn’t get into a Head Start program, they would be sitting at home,” said Brittany Acosta, a Head Start parent in Dorchester.
It’s teachers are drastically underpaid, and there’s a serious need for a rainy day-type fund should the federal government shut down again, the association says. As they’ve done in years past, state lawmakers have offered to provide financial relief, but the Massachusetts Head Start Association’s request for 3 percent above the amount it received last year, an additional $4.6 million to help its staff keep up with the state’s rising cost of living, so far has not been allocated.
Last year, President Trump’s leaked budget proposal revealed he considered eliminating Head Start entirely. Then, in the summer, he cut off Head Start enrollment for immigrants without legal status. And during the fall’s government shutdown, four Head Start centers in Massachusetts closed because they couldn’t access their funding.
Trump’s latest budget proposal shows a fourth year without increasing funding for the program, which was established in the mid-1960s.
Michelle Haimowitz, executive director of the Massachusetts Head Start Association, said the program doesn’t want to eliminate more child slots than it already has, but paying teachers a competitive salary is equally important in order to keep them from leaving for higher paying jobs. Head Start teachers make under $50,000 annually compared to over $85,000 for the average Massachusetts kindergarten teacher.
“It’s an impossible choice,” Haimowitz said. “When we reduce the size of our programs, we’re not reducing the size of the need.”
Massachusetts is one of few states that supplements federal funding for Head Start, and last year it increased the program’s state grant from $5 million to $20 million, adding to the $189 million in federal aid it receives in this state.
“We can’t run a program without giving staff a raise for three years,” Haimowitz said. “Our next fight now is not just for survival, but it’s for thriving and growth.”
The Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday released its budget, which doesn’t grant Head Start’s request of a 3 percent boost. But state Representative Christopher Worrell filed an amendment for additional funding. Worrell, whose district covers parts of Dorchester and Roxbury, said he loves Head Start’s embrace of culture, recalling one visit to a center where he could smell staff cooking stew chicken, a traditional Caribbean dish.
“I’ve been to dozens of schools throughout the district, and you don’t get that home-cooked meal,” Worrell said. “[The state is] stepping up and doing the best we can with what we have.”
At the Action for Boston Community Development’s Head Start and Early Head Start center in Dorchester, the children of Classroom 7 arrived one Monday morning and dove into bins of magnetic tiles before their teachers, Paola Polanco and Leolina Rasundar Chinnappa, served breakfast. Acosta dropped off her 4-year-old daughter, Violeta, before reporting to her teaching position at the center, where several other Head Start parents also work.
“It’s important for all Head Start parents to have the opportunity to give their child an experience in a learning environment before they actually start kindergarten,” Acosta said.
Beyond providing early education and care to children of low-income families, from birth to age 5, the program helps them access other resources, including mental health services, SNAP benefits, homelessness assistance, and employment opportunities.
It also serves as daycare for parents who might not be able to afford it, while they’re at work.
Research has shown the importance of preschool in a child’s development with one 2023 study, focused on Boston public preschools, finding that it improves student behavior and increases the likelihood of high school graduation and college enrollment.
For Rickencia Clerveaux and Christopher Mclean, the Dorchester Head Start center is the only place they feel comfortable sending their 3-year-old son, Shontz, who is on the autism spectrum. Shontz’s stimming — repetitive movements that stimulate the senses — has reduced, and his speech has improved since he joined the center in 2024, Clerveaux said.
His parents say he’s also come out of his shell. Mclean now drops his son off and gets a simple “bye” as Shontz joins his classmates, he said.
He and Clerveaux said they appreciate the specialized attention Shontz can receive from teachers, such as when staff identified that Shontz might have hearing issues. His parents were able to follow up with their doctor and get Shontz to have surgery to improve his hearing.
“It’s a safe net for parents,” Clerveaux said. “There’s so many ways that him being here helps him grow better.”
Without Head Start, Clerveaux said a lot of pressure would be put on parents to find care for their children, “knowing that they’re already struggling or not getting the ends to meet.”
“That’s a burden for everybody in the community,” she said. “If there’s no funding, there’s no daycare and parents cannot work.”
Lauren Albano can be reached at lauren.albano@globe.com. Follow her on X @LaurenAlbano_.
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